Timber deal chips in with Tiwi Is jobs

Tony Palakui and other Tiwi Islanders preform the Boat Dance as part of their gift-giving at the signing ceremony yesterday. Picture: HELEN ORR Source: NTNews

THE timber plantation on the Tiwi Islands that has refused to die has been saved once again with a new marketing deal worth up to $200 million over five years.

Japanese company Mitsui & Co yesterday signed a memorandum of understanding with the Tiwi Plantations Corporation which took over the 30,000ha of Acacia mangium after the Great Southern plantation company fell over in May 2009. The agreement would allow Mitsui and Co to buy and sell Tiwi woodchips.

Both groups expect there will be 300,000 to 400,000 green metric tonnes exported to Japan, China and India each year as woodchips for use in making paper. They expect exports to begin by May.

There will be up 100 direct jobs in addition to the 22 jobs that exist now maintaining the plantation.

It means the deal reported in September that the Territory Government would lease 10,000ha on a 99-year lease in exchange for $1 million in cash and a $2.8 million loan will not be happening. But Chief Minister Adam Giles said the government is still interested in that land.

"We are still working with the Tiwi land Council and Tiwi on ways in which we can grow economic opportunity," he said.

"We are looking at further opportunities around additional acreage in terms of the 10,000ha, what we can put on there, whether it's plantation timber or other agricultural and horticultural products. We are also working around tourism potential and residential development potential."

Tiwi Land Council chairman Gibson Farmer Illortaminni said it was a day there generations of his people believed would happen.

The project has $10 million in grants from the Aboriginal Benefits Account.

"This is the day that we share in respect with the leaders that have passed away and this is the day that belongs to Tiwi and others that have believed in our strength to manage our land," he said.

"And to create our own resource upon these islands. Able to give us a job and opportunity truly our own."

Mr Giles said there would be more jobs at the Port Melville wharf.

"Tiwi people are leading in the Northern Territory," he said. "They have taken control of their own lives."